Before She Became Rapport: Emma's Story
by Crescent Dreamweaver
Summary: The events that took place before Emma was rescued by Mutant X.


BEFORE SHE BECAME RAPPORT:  
  
EMMA'S STORY  
  
by  
  
Crescent Dreamweaver  
  
email: catz4dog1@aol.com  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Mutant X. Those rights belong to Marvel Studios and Tribune Entertainment.  
  
Synopsis: The title pretty much says it all. Everything that happened to Emma a short while before the start of the season one premiere.  
  
* *= indicates emphasized words  
  
-- --= indicates a person's thoughts  
  
Let the story begin!  
  
* * *  
  
Emma deLauro gazed with satisfaction around the store where she worked as a salesgirl. She had won Employee of the Month for the fifth time running, and she'd heard a rumor from her coworkers that the store manager was going to give her a promotion. Emma grinned. She'd been working at J.C. Penny's for less than a year, so she knew that winning Employee of the Month five times in a row practically guaranteed that she was going to quickly get a promotion.  
  
And it was all thanks to her powers.  
  
Emma didn't know how she was able to do it, but for some reason, she was able to influence the minds of customers. --Well, as the saying goes, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth." And I don't plan on looking the gift horse in the mouth anytime soon.--  
  
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and frowned slightly. It was a man with a blond crew cut, wearing a suit that would have looked appropriate on a bank manager. --Why would a guy like him be in the Misses and Petites?-- she thought, confused. She turned towards him, and pasted a smile on her face.  
  
"Are you Emma deLauro?" the guy asked. Emma nodded, feeling a twinge of fear.  
  
"Yes, I am," Emma replied. "How may I help you, Mr.--?"  
  
"Thorne. Frank Thorne. And you can help me by coming with me," the guy said.  
  
Emma shook her head, still smiling, though she had to fight to keep the smile on her face from being replaced by a look of fear. "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't do that."  
  
Thorne leaned towards her. "I know about your powers, Ms. deLauro. Now, I suggest you come with me, before I start to get pissed."  
  
Emma was tempted to run away, but then two other guys in the same kind of suits that Thorne wore appeared behind him, and she knew that she would be tempting fate by running away with those guys around. "All right, I'm coming. Let me go tell my boss that I'm clocking out."  
  
"You'd better not tell your boss about us," Thorne warned.  
  
"I won't." Emma walked upstairs towards her boss's office, and knocked on the door.  
  
"Come in," her boss called. Emma opened the door and walked inside. Madeline Barrison looked up from the papers on her desk, and smiled up at Emma. "Is everything all right, Emma?"  
  
Emma glanced over her shoulder, making sure that Thorne and the other two guys weren't out there. "I wish that everything was all right," she said in a low voice, turning back to Madeline. "There are some guys after me. They told me to come with them, and I told them that I had to tell you that I was going to clock out."  
  
"You want me to call security, Emma?" Madeline asked softly, looking worried. Emma shook her head no.  
  
"That's a bad idea. For one thing, it'll take security about five minutes to get up here, and by that time, those guys could have dragged me out of the store." Emma thought for a moment. Then she had an idea. "When I walk out the door with those guys, could you set off the alarm?"  
  
Madeline shook her head. Then she brightened. "No, but you can." She rummaged around in a box, and then came up with a t-shirt. "Emma, stuff this in your purse. It'll set off the alarm the moment you walk out the door."  
  
Emma took it and shoved it into her purse, zipping it up. "I'll mail it back to the store as soon as I can," she said. Then she clocked out, and went back downstairs to where Thorne and his goons were waiting, unaware that she was being watched.  
  
A woman with long blond hair watched Emma deLauro from behind a rack with several dresses hanging on it. "Adam, she's on the move." Her voice was laced with disgust. "She's being accompanied by Thorne and a couple of his fellow goons." She glared down at Thorne and the others. "You want me and Jesse to get her away from them?"  
  
Beside her, an older man with curly dark brown hair that made him look slightly rumpled stared down at Emma, and then shook his head. "No. She's got a plan."  
  
"Are you sure, Adam?" asked a blond-haired young man on the woman's other side. "She looks terrified to me."  
  
"Yes, but she also looks determined," replied Adam. "My instinct tells me that she's got a plan. Jesse, Shalimar, I want you to follow her. Make sure that the GS agents don't get away with her. We can't let someone with the kind of power that she's got get into Eckhart's hands."  
  
Both Shalimar and Jesse left their hiding place, following Emma and the GS agents at a safe distance.  
  
Emma swallowed slightly as they approached the exit. --God, I don't ask You for much, but I would really appreciate it if this plan goes through.-- She took a deep breath. --Well, here goes nothing.--  
  
Then she started to walk out the door, but a moment later, the alarms went off. Emma let out a sigh of relief. Thorne and his goons nearly jumped out of their skins, and she took the opportunity to run out the door and down the street. She headed for a club that was nearby. --On a Saturday night, it should be packed-- she thought grimly. --I can hide in the crowd.--  
  
Shalimar ran along the rooftop of one of the shorter buildings, and spotted Emma running down the street towards a club that was packed with people.  
  
"Adam, she's headed for a club down the street," she said, as though she was talking to herself.  
  
Adam's voice came out of nowhere. "Is it crowded?"  
  
Shalimar rolled her eyes. "Adam, it's a Saturday night, and that's one of the most popular clubs in the city. Does that answer your question?"  
  
"Smartass." Shalimar chuckled. Then she spotted the GS agents. They were chasing Emma, and slowly closing the space between them and her.  
  
"Adam, the GS agents are on Emma's tail," she said worriedly.  
  
"Well, then it's a good thing that the club's crowded. They should have a difficult time finding her in there," Adam replied. "All the same, I want you and Jesse to get into place on the other side of the club, just to be on the safe side."  
  
Shalimar nodded, and relayed the message to Jesse. She saw him run out of the shadows of a building across the street, and head around to an alleyway down the street to the back of the club. Then she ran across the roof and jumped onto the roof of a different building.  
  
Emma went inside the club and glanced over her shoulder. She turned pale when she saw that the guys after her were close behind. She walked quickly through the room, weaving in and out among the people who were standing there, talking and drinking  
  
Several people down there were watching Proxy Blue on the computers down there, a popular animated news show whose stories were mostly about ridiculous things like UFO's and government conspiracies.  
  
"A teenage girl falls six stories and walks away unscathed," said the animated female on the screen. "A man bursts into flames with no signs of burns. One thing's for sure; it's getting weirder out there every day."  
  
Emma ignored Proxy Blue, and walked quickly towards a hallway nearby. She turned the corner, dodging more people. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw that Thorne and the other two guys were just a few feet away from her. A moment later, she slammed into a dark-haired man wearing a black suit who had just come around the corner.  
  
"Help me," Emma gasped.  
  
The guy looked confused. "What?"  
  
Emma closed her eyes and then opened them, staring at the guy in front of her intently. She projected an image of herself standing there, screaming, into his mind. He blinked, and stepped backwards. Emma looked over her shoulder, and saw that Thorne and his men were approaching. She ran towards the exit, but before she left, she looked back over at the man, and projected the same image into his mind again. Then she ran out the door.  
  
Brennan Mulwray stared after the young woman who had just asked him for help. Had he just imagined what he'd seen in his mind, or had he really seen what he'd thought he'd seen? --That was weird-- he thought, and walked away, not noticing the men in suits that ran by, following the lady.  
  
Emma ran out the back exit of the club, and fled down the sidewalk. Suddenly, a van zoomed around the corner, heading for her, and not showing any signs of stopping. Emma knew that it was only a matter of seconds before the car reached her, and she had a fairly good idea of what would happen if the people driving the van would do to her.  
  
Suddenly, a blond-haired young man ran out of an alleyway nearby, and grabbed Emma. He shoved her out of the path of the van, and stood there in her place. But when the van was about to hit him, he became see-through, and the van passed right through him. Once the van was behind him, he became solid again.  
  
The van did a partial u-turn, and screeched to a halt in the middle of the street. The minute it did so, a woman with long blond hair jumped down from the roof of a building onto the roof of the van. Thorne stepped out of the driver's side of the van, and the lady side-kicked him in the head. A second man climbed up onto the van, and threw several punches at the lady, all of which she avoided easily. Then she leapt up into the air and kicked him in the head while flipping backwards, landing in a crouch.  
  
Emma gaped, unable to believe what she was seeing. The lady could have easily given Xena a run for her money.  
  
Suddenly, there was a gunshot, and Emma looked over to see where who was shooting. One of Thorne's men was shooting at her. The blond guy grabbed Emma by the arm and yanked her behind him, using himself as a shield. As quickly as he'd become intangible before, he became rock-like. The bullets hit him, but didn't hurt him; instead, they clattered to the ground, flattened by the impact.  
  
The lady leapt off the van, spinning around before landing gently on the ground. Another guy came running up. He held a gun, and fired it at them. The blond guy kicked a barrel into the air and then leapt into the air, spinning around before kicking the barrel at the guy. It hit him, and sent him flying backwards.  
  
The blond guy walked over to the guys, all of whom were lying on the ground, unconscious, and leaned over one of them. He smiled grimly.  
  
"Smile, loser," was all he said, aiming his fist at the guy's face. But instead of punching him, there was a bright flash of light as he took the first man's picture. He did that to each of the guys that had been after Emma.  
  
Emma stared at the blond man, not noticing the sound of footsteps approaching her. She began to walk away, but froze when she saw the man who had come up behind her.  
  
"No need to run anymore, Emma," he said, smiling at her. He had curly dark brown hair, and topped her by about an inch. "You're among friends."  
  
"How do you know my name?" Emma demanded fearfully.  
  
The man simply looked over his shoulder at the blond lady who had just come up behind him, who smiled, and then over at the guy who had finished taking pictures of the guys on the ground. Then he looked back at Emma, and gave her a reassuring smile. "All of your questions will be answered," he replied. "But right now, we need to get out of here."  
  
He held out his hand to Emma, who just stared at him, not saying anything. She glanced over her shoulder at the blond guy, who nodded in encouragement. Then she looked back at the guy in front of her, who was still holding out his hand patiently. "You can trust me," his eyes seemed to say. --Why do I get the feeling that if I go with these guys, my life will change even more drastically than it already has?-- she thought. -- Oh, what the hell. My life can't possibly change anymore than it already has.--  
  
Hesitantly, she placed her hand in the guy's hand, and he led her away.  
  
THE END  
  
A/N: Please R&R, but no flames, otherwise I'll have to kick your sorry arses from here to Middle Earth. See ya! 


End file.
